Having sold for $4.6 million in February, the two-story Western SoMa building at the corner of Folsom and Langton Streets, which was home to the BrainWash cafe and laundromat for nearly three decades, has since been painted and remodeled, with four office suites (three of which are vacant) over an open 4,000-square-foot retail space, four new bathrooms and a newly poured slab floor.

Recent Articles

Comments from “Plugged-In” Readers

Hmm, a $1.4M premium for a new coat of paint, new concrete floor, and some remodeled bathrooms barely 6 months later and in a market where prices are flattening out or slightly declining. Seems like a bit of a stretch…

This makes me sad that a wonderful location like that will likely remain vacant and empty while this seller waits for a buyer. I had hoped that the building was sold to an owner-user in which case some interesting business could contribute to the neighborhood. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I hope this isn’t going to end up with some developer that lets the building languish in limbo while they pursue development entitlements for the next 4 years (seemingly the City standard duration for any development).

I seriously think the City should explore, in appropriate cases, making it a developer’s requirement to subsidize neighboring businesses with cash payments as part of its impact abatement. As I recall the earlier reporting of Brainwash’s economies, it would not have required too great of assistance to have gotten it through the construction of 99 Rausch.